Archive for November, 2016

During President Truman’s presidency he pushed for his own version of universal health care but the AMA called in socialized medicine it was quickly defeated. Congress in 1945 passed the McCarran-Ferguson Act, which gave the states the right to regulate the health insurance industry in their respective states.

That act allowed the states to establish pre-existing exclusion time lines, it also allowed the states to pick and choose what health insurance companies were allowed to sell health insurance within state boundaries. This act basically established winners and losers in the health insurance industry. Currently health insurance companies are prohibited from selling cross state lines, the walls were established in 1945. The democrats have been trying for single payer health care since President Truman, every act passed by congress when controlled by the Democratic Party has been focused on one goal aka single payer.

Our nation is to diverse and to big for single payer health insurance, because of the larger cities such as New York City and Los Angeles, would use a larger share of a single payer government controlled budget. Health insurance has always been a private industry product purchased by consumers, or the consumers opt to pay the doctors directly for a higher discount.

I experienced direct payments to doctors offices for a few years and noticed that I received a discount due to paying in cash where the doctors billing office had no paperwork to fill out for the insurance company. The McCarran-Ferguson act in effect established monopolies within each state.

The 1974 act and then the 1996 act in an inverse way helped insurance costs to skyrocket, its congress is why the cost of insurance has been going up by preventing the free market to decide the winners and losers or who merges with who. Its time to let the consumers to decide instead of trying to establish single payer, costs would decline if all 1500 insurance companies were allowed to compete in the free market.

Another way to dramatically reduce costs is to limit what lawyers can be paid in malpractice court cases. Costs vary for doctors and nurses depending on their specialty. For an OB/GYN the Premium could be as high as 110,000 a year or more depending on the state they practice in.

By congressional act all health insurance companies have to carry a reserve to pay for claims and malpractice cases. some insurance companies use the interest off the reserves to pay for other items.

I’m hoping that Trump and congress pass a simple bill allowing all health insurance companies to compete in all 50 states, instead currently each state allows only a few insurance companies to operate within state boundaries, which actually artificially raises costs of premiums and cost of health care with in each state.

This was all done on purpose to eventually allow the democrats to gt single payer for the country, Single Payer nearly became an actual reality had hillary been elected, because that would have been the logical step in order to save the ACA aka obamacare. Obamacare was an illegal law to begin with since it originated in the senate instead of the house.

Harry Reid stripped the original written bill that was in the (HR3962), the affordable healthcare act as it was originally written was stripped of its original bill and became the patient protection and affordable care act. This was an illegal bill because it was a spending bill and all spending bills must originate in the house.

Because Scott Walker had been elected to replace ted kennedy, the democratic party no longer had 60 votes to stop a filibuster, so they used a process called reconciliation that’s used for budget bills only. both of the steps are illegal under the Constitution.

It’s been an illegal law because obama has been illegally funding thru other agencies since congress has refused to fund it. Obama has directed the secretary of the Health and Human Services agency to take the premiums paid and redirect the payments to the health insurance companies so that they do not leave the markets.

The health insurance companies are leaving the markets in each state because the age group they were promised that would purchase insurance are opting to pay the penalty and pay cash directly to their doctors. The insurance companies are experiencing huge losses because the healthy people are opting to pay the no insurance penalty.

If congress passes the bill to allow all 1500 health insurance companies to compete nationwide, they will also allow people to chose cafeteria style health insurance rather than uniform plans that are preset. honestly being as old as I am why do I need to have OB/GYN coverage, or pediatric coverage.

If we get cafeteria style health care plans, I know exactly how mine would be:
major medical
prescription coverage
yearly preventive heath care doctors visits
mental health
dental
eye coverage.
my coverage for this would be 175 a month and 15 for copays

My current coverage is for:
29 items relating to health care for women from the age 13 to 99
34 items relating to health care for children
22 items relating to male health care
no major medical – was told it didn’t conform to the ACA
eye care coverage
prescription coverage
total cost is 980 a month for the premium
co-pays 30 for doctors visits and prescriptions

The empty chair sometimes sits in a corner, or on the side, the head of the table where people eat meals, even holiday meals as well. The empty chair happens almost daily and I’m just guessing in 1 out of every 5 families to some degree or another. Birthdays, anniversaries, holidays and just time are when most empty chairs can happen a person just never knows.

Most empty chairs happen because that person has decided to sacrifice his personal private life to enlist and defend this nation and the americans who live here. Families, couples, children and friends and relatives have great pride in that single empty chair at holidays because it reminds them of the sacrifice that that person has chosen to do for family, honor, and the nation.

Other times that an empt chair happens is divorce, relocation, distance, death, anger, and misunderstandings, most times the empty chair just sits up against the wall so that its out of the way, it shouldnt be banished to never to be seen that empty chair had an individual sitting in it for years at one time, its part of a person or families life.

Holidays are the hardest for the empty chair because it reminds people that the person wont be home, instead of letting it be a sad reminder, put a picture at the table where the chair would be and make sure the chair is there as well this year for the holidays.

Howard William Osterkamp has been attributed to the following saying and its true “all gave some;some gave all” this phrase sums it all for anyone who has or had a member in the military or has lost a loved one in the military.

This time of the year is when the empty chair causes the most pain in those who have lost loved ones, instead of dwelling on the sadness focus on the joy and the zest for life that the person had in the empty chair. To really honor that empty chair, focus on that persons ideas for life no matter how crazy the ideas were.

To those that have a family member, relative, friend, lover or future spouse in the military, I tip my hat to you and to the ones who have stepped up to volunteer and set aside their private life takes a great deal of commitment on their part and I salute all of you for supporting them in your own ways. Let the empty chair also be a reason to celebrate instead of sadness.

I have an idea not sure if it will take off, but post pictures of the empty chair with the persons picture on the empty chair doing something or sitting in some place that will make a person smile or even laugh, especially if its a current active military person.